The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may or may not constitute prior art.
The majority of modern motor vehicle automatic transmissions include a plurality of planetary gear assemblies arranged in tandem in a housing. An input shaft drives a torque converter which, in turn, drives an element of the first of the plurality of planetary gear assemblies. Typically, an element of the last planetary gear assembly is connected to and drives an output shaft.
Within the automatic transmission, in addition to the planetary gear assemblies, are various fixed connections and bearings, and clutches and brakes which select, engage and provide the various forward gears and reverse. There are typically numerous ball, roller and needle bearing assemblies of both conventional and thrust types.
Because of the tandem arrangement of the transmission, several thrust bearings are typically utilized to separate closely adjacent components that rotate at different speeds. And because of this arrangement and the complexity of automatic transmissions, it is typically not possible to eliminate all axial space between the faces of a thrust bearing when it is installed between components in the transmission. The indeterminate axial position of a thrust bearing becomes a particular problem when the space adjacent one face of the thrust bearing is relied upon to provide a transmission fluid lubrication path to the associated components of, for example, a planetary gear assembly.
The present invention is directed to solving these problems.